President-elect Barack Obama's daughters, Malia and Sasha, learned a few tricks from Barbara and Jenna Bush on their recent visit to the White House - such as how to slide down the solarium ramp, bottom first.

President George Bush's 27-year-old twin daughters showed Malia, 10, and Sasha, seven, their bedrooms, helped them jump on a bed and taught them a few ways to have fun, their mother, Laura, said yesterday when she appeared on ABC television's Good Morning America programme.

"It was fun for the girls to get to show them not only [their rooms] but the way the big cross-hall can be an obstacle course for little kids to run up and down, and the solarium ramp that you can slide down on your bottom. So they showed them all the special tricks," she said.

The twins also "aided and abetted" the Obama girls' running jump on to a tall bed.

"We usually put a step out for people to step on to when they stay in that room. But instead the little girls did the running jump, and Barbara and Jenna of course aided and abetted that jumping," she said.

Laura Bush said the girls' rooms were her first task in decorating the White House, which she showed off last night in a History Channel television special, The White House: Behind Closed Doors.

The Obama girls will be the first young children to move into the White House since Caroline and John Kennedy Jr nearly half a century ago.